Fox Picks Up ‘Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’, Bekmambetov To Direct

Seth Grahame-Smith hit it big with his best-selling horror/classic literature mashup Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is currently being developed into a movie. Now another one of Grahame-Smith’s literary works, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, is on its way to the big screen as well.

20th Century Fox has officially acquired the rights to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which was optioned earlier this year by Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted). Burton will produce the flick, which it seems will be Bekmambetov’s next directorial effort, instead of either Wanted 2 or Red Asphalt.

Grahame-Smith’s novel re-imagines the 16th president of the United States as a deadly vampire slayer who has been on a quest for revenge against the blood-sucking creatures of the night ever since he found out that they were responsible for the death of his mother.

Lincoln eventually learns that the vampires have fled to the southern states of the U.S. and are concocting a plan to conquer and enslave the entire country – this in turn leads to the Civil War between the Union and the Confederacy, the latter of which the vampires are aligned with.

The Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter script has already been written by Grahame-Smith, while the film adaptation itself is being envisioned as a $69 million-budgeted, 3D affair. The presence of both Burton and Bekmambetov behind the camera should (if nothing else) assure that the movie is visually-fantastical in design – expect it to be a hard R-Rated, bloody action flick as well.

Get ready to meet the “real” Abraham Lincoln.

One would expect a project that is titled Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter to be realized as a cheap B-movie that is destined for a direct-to-DVD/Blu-ray release. The suggestion that it is actually a tentpole pic in the making is kind of mystifying at first, but, then again, the innately ludicrous nature of the project is the very quality that makes it so enticing to begin with.

Can Burton and Bekmambetov deliver a final product that is as over-the-top and entertainingly silly as the title indicates it should be? It seems highly unlikely that Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter will not have its tongue planted firmly against its cheek – still, stranger things have happened in Hollywood.

Production on Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is expected to being next March, with a 2012 release date in mind.